Monday, October 25, 2010

Menu Plan

It's Turkey Week. not officially, of course; that happens in about a month. But every year, the grocery store has such fabulous deals on turkeys, and I never can pass them up. Trouble is, you only need so many turkeys in your freezer. So this week is all about using up a turkey to make room for the next bird. I've got one in the fridge thawing and plan to brine it overnight tonight and cook it tomorrow (pray that my oven hangs on, by the way). For the rest of the week, we'll just see how far we can stretch the leftovers...I'm guessing pretty far.

Monday
Spaghetti
Homemade marinara
Homemade bread w/herb dipping oil
Salad w/grated parm, sliced olives, and yellow peppers

Tuesday
TURKEY!
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Green Beans
Applesauce cake

Wednesday
Pizza w/alfredo, sun-dried tomatoes, turkey, spinach, mozzarella, and feta
Cheese pizza for the kids
Salad

Thursday
White Turkey Chili
Yellow Rice

Friday
Turkey Pot Pie

Saturday
Leftovers

Sunday
More leftovers or possibly Beef with Broccoli stir-fry over Jasmine Rice

And here's last week's menu plan, which I never officially posted:

Monday
Smoked Sausage
Mashed Potatoes
Broccoli

Tuesday
Broccoli Cheese Soup
Roasted Chicken Legs and Thighs

Wednesday
Beef Stew with Carrots
Homemade noodle-dumplings
Apple Crumb Galette (like a pie, but not baked in a pan--sort of tart-esque)

Thursday
Fried Rice
Pot Stickers with dipping sauce

Friday
Takeout pizza + breadsticks

Saturday
Breakfast scramble (eggs, potatoes, onions, peppers, cheese)
Sausage links

Sunday
Leftovers

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Short Week Menu Plan

Hey, all! Short menu plan week this week. My mom will be coming to stay at our house this weekend, beginning on Thursday, so I'm leaving all of the weekend meal decisions up to her (insert evil laugh here).

Monday's dish is a re-creation (in part) of a meal I had last Friday when Hubs and I went out for our Anniversary; he had a Wild Mushroom and Butternut Squash lasagna, and I had Cheese tortellini with chicken, toasted pine nuts, browned butter and sage, drizzled with pumpkin butter and topped with toasted sage-rubbed breadcrumbs. It was delicious. I don't have any pumpkin butter, so we're winging it without. We'll have Cheese Ravioli with browned butter and sage, pine nuts, and the sage breadcrumbs. We'll also have steamed broccoli with garlic chips, because we must have vegetables!

Tuesday will be Hot Chicken Salad, just because I crave it.

Wednesday will be Beef Stew because it can go in the crock pot, and we never ended up having it last week.

Thursday, we'll have leftovers and round our meal out with salad if need be. And it usually needs be!

As I said, Friday and forward will be up to my mom. But don't worry--she is an extremely capable and accomplished cook, so it will all be well.

Hope you have a great week in your house!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Back on the Bandwagon

I've just recently started cooking in earnest again--if you don't already know, we're expecting again, and I'm just now getting into my second trimester with some renewed energy. My poor garden bore the brunt of my energy-deprived neglect; I worked and weeded and planted and watered, then I got pregnant and tired pretended there wasn't really a garden out there at all. The unfortunate part is that I lost interest round about the time things were ready for harvest and needed the most attention. My wonderful husband helped me put up a few tomatoes, and I made a batch of pesto to last me the year, but other than that, much of my produce went to waste. Fortunately, our neighbors were able to use a bit of it, but still. I have been longing for the first frost to come so I could officially let go of my garden guilt, because I have lots of it. I pretend next year will be better, but I'll have a tiny baby in tow, so I'm not sure it will.

All of that to say that if I didn't have time or energy for a bountiful garden that could feed my family, I certainly didn't have energy for inventive and involved meal planning, much less energy to blog about it. But here I am, at week 15 or something like that, and though my house will take a while to recover from my constant napping, my meals are ready to jump right back in. I'm hoping to shake it up a little; looking at my repertoire, I'm just frankly a little bored. Hopefully, over the next few months, I'll find some fabulous new dishes and rediscover some old favorites to post here.

Monday
Meatloaf
Scalloped Potatoes
Peas

Tuesday--Our Anniversary!
Either we'll go out and the kids will eat leftovers, or we'll have
Roasted Chicken
Rice Pilaf
Salad

Wednesday
Crock Pot Beef Stew
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Bread

Thursday (Or, the day on which we might actually celebrate our anniversary on account of needing child care)
Either we'll go out and the kids will eat leftovers, or we'll have
Roasted Chicken, etc., etc.

Friday
White Chicken Chili
Sweet Corn Cake

Saturday
Pot Stickers w/ chili dipping sauce
Vegetable Fried Rice

Sunday
Takeout or leftovers